BALLISTIC: ECKS VS. SEVER

BALLISTIC: ECKS VS. SEVER holds true to the opening credit stating that it was “DIRECTED BY KAOS.” Antonio Banderas plays Jeremiah Ecks, a former agent with the FBI who seems to have “retired” from the Bureau to sit on a barstool and lament his missing wife. Throughout the movie, the audience will wish that someone would hand him a razor.

“Sever,” portrayed by Lucy Liu, is an orphaned Chinese woman who has been trained in the martial arts from an early age. She was recruited into the DIA to be an agent who has “no fear, no conscience and no morality.” The small- framed Lucy Liu does come across as a master in the martial arts as she beats up all the bodyguards of Michael, the son of a high ranking official with the DIA. She then kidnaps Michael and takes him hostage to a hideout the almost looks like “THE BAT CAVE”.

Her character actually is similar to the latest Batgirl in the comic books who was an orphaned Asian, brought up by militants who taught her nothing but martial arts so that would be all her entire brain would contain and process. Could the writers of this movie possibly read comic books?

The real villain in this movie is Michael’s alleged father who steals an ingenious new assassination device. Microscopic and injectable, it lies dormant inside its victim until activated and then kills instantly by remote control, leaving no trace. Dad injected the Michael with this nano-weapon so it could be smuggled into the Vancouver from Germany.

Did I mention that the villain is (of course) married to Ecks’ missing wife? Can you guess who Michael’s real father is?

This movie takes place in Vancouver, British Columbia so the questions arise: “Since when does our FBI have operatives and missions in Canada? Isn’t that what the CIA is for?”

Some of the locations in this film were nice, but some, like the aquarium scene, seemed wasted. For those who like real things exploding, it appears that real explosives were used in this movie instead of CGI. The high-speed motorcycle chase was well done and there was even one part where the cameras were properly places so it feels that the audience is actually driving on it … narrowly missing the side of a car. Other automotive stunts seemed unreal, like Ecks lying on the top of half of a skidding police bus as he was shooting a machine gun at Sever.

I expected much rougher language in this R-rated film to match the violence. Since most of the dialog was brief, there were a few occasions where the bad guys would say the typical expletive shortly between discovering that they set off the trip wire and the next series of explosions. At times, I was reminded of the famous line by Robert Redford, “Did you think you used enough dynamite, Butch?”

In the parts where this movie lacks in continuity it makes up in violence. Lucy Liu plays a heartless killer in this movie and her fights are very graphic. And, it’s no surprise that, in the end, she turns out to be one of the heroes who teams up with her adversary, Ecks, to get the true villains.